The R2R3-MYB transcription factor family in Taxus chinensis: identification, characterization, expression profiling and posttranscriptional regulation analysis

Xinling Hu; Lisha Zhang; Iain Wilson; Fenjuan Shao; Deyou Qiu

doi:10.7717/peerj.8473

The R2R3-MYB transcription factor family in Taxus chinensis: identification, characterization, expression profiling and posttranscriptional regulation analysis

PeerJ. 2020 Feb 17:8:e8473. doi: 10.7717/peerj.8473. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Xinling Hu^#^{1

2}, Lisha Zhang^#¹, Iain Wilson³, Fenjuan Shao¹, Deyou Qiu¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Tree Genetics and Breeding, Key Laboratory of Tree Breeding and Cultivation of State Forestry Administration, The Research Institute of Forestry, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China.
² CAS Key Laboratory of Pathogenic Microbiology and Immunology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
³ Agriculture and Food, CSIRO, Canberra, Australia.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

The MYB transcription factor family is one of the largest gene families playing regulatory roles in plant growth and development. The MYB family has been studied in a variety of plant species but has not been reported in Taxus chinensis. Here we identified 72 putative R2R3-MYB genes in T. chinensis using a comprehensive analysis. Sequence features, conversed domains and motifs were characterized. The phylogenetic analysis showed TcMYBs and AtMYBs were clustered into 36 subgroups, of which 24 subgroups included members from T. chinensis and Arabidopsis thaliana, while 12 subgroups were specific to one species. This suggests the conservation and specificity in structure and function of plant R2R3-MYBs. The expression of TcMYBs in various tissues and different ages of xylem were investigated. Additionally, miRNA-mediated posttranscriptional regulation analysis revealed that TcMYBs were the targets of miR858, miR159 and miR828, suggesting the posttranscriptional regulation of MYBs is highly conserved in plants. The results provide a basis for further study the role of TcMYBs in the regulation of secondary metabolites of T. chinensis.

Keywords: MYB; Taxus chinensis; Transcription factor.

Grants and funding

The work was supported by the National Key Research & Development Program of China (grant number 2017YFD0600205) and the Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 31700584 and 31670676). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.